When Ellie’s blind, dying grandfather gathers the greedy family to announce he’s donating his fortune to charity, tension explodes. The open safe tempts everyone. As relatives enter the room one by one, Ellie suspects foul play.
But when it’s her turn, Grandpa reveals a shocking truth.
At 19, I was the black sheep of a family that treated me like I was invisible. After Mom died, Dad married Sharon, who came complete with two daughters and had enough emotional baggage to sink a cruise ship.
The way they looked at me — like I was something they’d scraped off their shoes — made our spacious home feel smaller than a closet.
Their matching designer outfits and perfectly styled hair only emphasized how much I didn’t belong, with my thrift store clothes and messy ponytail.
“Ellie, dear,” Sharon would say, her voice dripping with fake sweetness, “wouldn’t you be more comfortable eating in the kitchen?”
That was her way of saying I embarrassed her in front of her country club friends. Dad would just stare at his plate, suddenly fascinated by his roasted asparagus.
My cousins weren’t any better.
All six of them treated family gatherings like networking events, schmoozing with anyone who might boost their social status.
I usually ended up in the kitchen, helping the staff clean up. At least they talked to me like I was human. Maria, our cook, always saved me a piece of her famous chocolate cake.
“Those people out there?” she’d say, sliding me an extra-large slice.
“They don’t know what they’re missing.”
But Grandpa? He was different. He’d worked his way up from nothing to build the family fortune, but being wealthy never changed him.
Grandpa was salt of the earth, through and through.
He was the only one in the family who saw me for who I really was when everyone else looked right through me.
Grandpa taught me everything worth knowing, from how to plant the perfect rose garden to how to laugh when life kicks you in the teeth.
While the rest of the family was busy climbing their social ladders, Grandpa and I would sit on his wraparound porch, drinking lemonade and talking about everything and nothing.
“Remember, Ellie,” he’d say when I was having a rough day, “the best revenge is living well. And maybe a little practical joke now and then.”
I didn’t fully understand what he meant until that summer, when everything changed.
Grandpa got sick, and his health deteriorated fast. His eyesight failed, and suddenly he was bedridden.
The family descended like locusts, their concern as fake as Sharon’s designer handbags.
I visited him every day, watching as he grew weaker, my heart breaking a little more each time. While the others whispered about his massive wall safe and what might be inside it, I just held his hand and read him his favorite books.
We worked our way through “The Count of Monte Cristo” at his request, which should have been my first clue about what was coming.
“Read that part again,” he’d say, “where Edmund discovers the treasure.”
Now I wonder if he was trying not to laugh.
Then came the day that changed everything.
“Family meeting,” Grandpa announced via a voice message, his voice barely above a whisper. “Everyone come to my house.
Now.”
The whole family rushed to Grandpa’s house, nearly trampling each other in their hurry to reach his bedside. I hung back, leaning against the wall near the door.
Then I noticed the safe in Grandpa’s bedroom was ajar. Grandpa never left the safe open.
I glanced around the room and my heart sank when I realized I wasn’t the only person who’d noticed.
All my relatives were eyeing the dark crack at the door with hungry eyes. Sharon’s daughters, Amber and Crystal, kept nudging each other and pointing at it when they thought no one was looking.
“I’m sad I can’t see any of you anymore,” Grandpa said. “I’d give anything to see your faces again, but it’s too late for that now.
The doctor says I don’t have much time left. That’s why I called you all here today. I’ve been putting my affairs in order and I want you all to know that I’ve decided to donate all my money to charity.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
I could practically hear their dreams of inheriting millions shattering like cheap glass. My cousin Bradley actually gasped out loud, then he turned and stared at the safe.
Everyone else followed his gaze. It was like they were all thinking the same thing: if they took something, he’d never know.
“Now that’s out of the way, I’d like a chance to speak with each of you privately,” Grandpa continued, adjusting his dark glasses.
“Who’s first?”
What happened next was like watching piranhas in a feeding frenzy. Everyone started talking at once, pushing and shoving, trying to be first in line.
“Enough!” My uncle declared loudly. “I’m the eldest son, and I will go first.”
The look in his eyes silenced everyone.
“Grandpa, wait!” I called out, trying to warn him, but Amber and Crystal shoved me out into the hall.
I watched from the hallway as they went in one by one.
Each came out looking smug, like cats who’d gotten into the cream.
My stomach churned. I knew exactly what was happening. The open safe was too tempting, and a blind old man would never know if they helped themselves, right?
I wasn’t allowed in to see Grandpa until everyone else had had their chance to “say goodbye.” I walked in and sat beside Grandpa’s bed, ignoring the safe completely.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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